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Space Trading/Exploration Games

Hi all

I grew up on space sims such as Elite, X-Wing and TIE fighter. However, it's a genre I haven't really played much of the past decade or so. Recently I've found myself wanting to dust off my joystick and get stuck into a freeform space sim. However, my requirements are quite specific, and I haven't been able to find a game which really meets them. I was hoping that RPS might be able to help me identify something to get lost in. Specifically I am looking for a space sim with the following attributes:

A large freeform universe in which to explore/trade/fight

Not too steep a learning curve- I don't want to have to devote my life to learning to play the thing, I don't have the time. (This is what has put me off the X series)

Must be playable with a joystick (I believe this rules out Freelancer)

Independence War 2 (my personal favorite)Darkstar One (kind of like a "baby's first space sim," but pretty fun. Designed with Freelancer in mind. I think it can be played with a stick)Evochron Mercenary (vast, complex, confusing, kind of "X" like)

You could try Spaceforce : Rogue Universe. It's not brilliant but it's one of the only recentish additions to the genre. It starts off a bit confusing but once you get the hang of it it isn't overly complex for the sake of being overly complex. It's also a really good looking game.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, loads to check out there. I've had Independence war 2 recommended to me before, but I hadn't realised it had the freeform exploration/trade thing going on as well as the combat. I'm going to give that a go, especially as it's nice and cheap on GOG.

I must admit, I am wondering whether I should have jumped on X3 during the Steam sale, with comments like Lightbulb's suggesting I may have overestimated the difficulty curve. Maybe next time I see it cheap I will give it a try.

Trading in I-War 2 works like this: you're a pirate. You shoot cargo ships (which operate along dynamically generated trade lanes) and they'll release their goods, which you tag to be delivered to your base. From there, you can trade the items through the trade screen or recycle them to craft your own stuff.

But you do not go from station to station with a bunch of cargo to sell. If you want that exact setup, I-War 2 won't give it to you.

I-War 2's free-form aspects (which, as Giaddon says, are piracy, not trading) are arse. I love the game, maybe not quite as much as the first but lots, but Particle Systems was good at heavily scripted missions, not sandboxage. It's the best slightly-less-nonsensical-physics space piloting shooty implementation I've played, and more than worth having just for that, but don't get it if you're looking for an Elite clone. Maybe try Privateer (it's Wing Commander, but not very apart from the talking cats). I want to try Evochron again myself at some point, but have already bounced of the demo with a "huh?" once. Doesn't help that there's so many versions of it and I'm easily confused.

I-War 2's free-form aspects (which, as Giaddon says, are piracy, not trading) are arse. I love the game, maybe not quite as much as the first but lots, but Particle Systems was good at heavily scripted missions, not sandboxage. It's the best slightly-less-nonsensical-physics space piloting shooty implementation I've played, and more than worth having just for that, but don't get it if you're looking for an Elite clone.

I worked on the I-War series as a designer, and I'd agree that the freeform aspect of I-War 2 is fairly limited, though it does give a better impression of the size of space than many other similar games. It's just a pity that all you can do in that huge space is pirate or do missions. Exploration (apart from discovering lucrative piracy sites) is just sight-seeing.

The piracy aspect is really fun and addictive though, and only came together really late in development. I'd recommend some mods to make the game more enjoyable, like multimod (to enable scripted mods to work nicely together), Custom Jafs (to give your trader a huge capacity ship) and Location Finder (a handy navigation tool that makes finding places easier).

Congratulations, I always wanted to play that game but never got around to it, but still, someone that worked on that game is Cool™. Also, I hope you don't go giving off comments about how space exploration/trading games are just old fashioned and noone wants to play them anymore, as someone from 2K did recently..